An updated mRFEI at the census tract level across the United States. 


The CDC's Modified Retail Food Environment Index (mRFEI) is a national measure used to assess disparities in food access. The index quantifies the percentage of relatively healthy food retailers compared to the total number of food retailers within a census tract, based on 2008–2009 datasets.
Over the past decade, significant changes have occurred in the retail food sector, particularly those driven by gentrification in local markets. These changes are not reflected in the existing mRFEI.
To address this gap, we recalculate the mRFEI for all U.S. census tracts using 2018–2019 datasets to better represent current food environment conditions.

mRFEI_2024: mRFEI index calculated using the 2018–2019 food environment datasets.
mRFEI_2011: mRFEI index calculated using the 2008–2009 food environment datasets.


Census_Tract_mRFEI_2024_2011.csv is the Table file;
Census_Tract_mRFEI_2024_2011.zip is the Shapefile.


Data sources: 
2018–2019 Infogroup dataset
2018 United States Census Bureau TIGER/Line Geodatabases

Faculty Members:
Peter Chen 
Ran Xu 
Qinyun Lin


Student Members:
Congcong Miao 
Weixuan Lyu 

Citation:
Lyu, W., Chen, X., Miao, C. et al. Revisiting the modified Retail Food Environment Index (mRFEI): examining food access inequities over a decade in the United States. Discov Public Health 22, 318 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12982-025-00704-5
